As a conventional electromagnetic relay, for example, there has been disclosed an electromagnetic relay including: an armature which tilts by excitation and non-excitation of an electromagnetic block; a movable contact portion which has a movable contact, is mounted on the armature, and tilting together with tilting of the armature; and a fixed contact portion having a fixed contact with which the movable contact comes into or out of contact. In the electromagnetic relay, an arc extension space is formed to extend an arc that is generated when the movable contact comes into or out of contact with the fixed contact, and a magnetic field generation unit is provided to guide, to the arc extension space, an arc that is generated when the movable contact comes into or out of contact with the fixed contact (cf. PTL 1).
In the above electromagnetic relay, as shown in FIGS. 7A and 7B, a fixed contact 22a is disposed at an upper surface edge of a base 30, and a movable contact 21a is disposed inside the fixed contact 22a. The electromagnetic relay is configured such that, an arc, generated between the movable contact 21a and the fixed contact 22a, is attracted upward by magnetic force of a permanent magnet 50 and extended longer, to thereby be eliminated.